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IN TOUCH – Paraclimbing and Cooking

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TX:Ìý 28.07.20Ìý 2040-2100

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PRESENTER:Ìý ÌýÌýÌýÌýÌýÌýÌý PETER WHITE

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PRODUCER:Ìý ÌýÌýÌýÌýÌýÌýÌýÌýÌý LOUISE CLARKE-ROWBOTHAM

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White

Good evening.Ìý Tonight, we’ve got the full range of age and activity covered on In Touch tonight, from the 70 plus man who’s had to take up cooking over the last few months:

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A little bit of milk to begin with.Ìý Measure it out with your finger – that should be enough.Ìý Mix it well and truly, just keep on going.Ìý It’ll get slightly stiffer…

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White

Well, he now wants to share what he’s learnt with other blind people.

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And the student who wants this to become a Paralympic event:

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Right foot above your right knee, that’s it, and then you go in to a gaston just up left, that’s it, now hold it, come on, come on, keep the tension, that’s it.Ìý You go into a tiny crimp in front of your face – that’s it.Ìý Right.Ìý Now pop to the top from there.Ìý Nice, smashed it.Ìý Feet back on.Ìý Matched and smashed.

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White

Well that was a sighted guide with Abbie Robinson.Ìý And she’s keeping up her climbing skills on a wall she’s constructed in her back garden during lockdown.

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But last weekend, along with gyms, climbing walls have also reopened and Abbie is keen that other visually impaired people should discover the sport that’s given her such pleasure and introduced her to an activity that she reckons is really supportive and inclusive.

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Abbie’s not just any old climber either, in her early 20s she’s already won four gold medals and two world championships with the GB Paraclimbing team and she now wants Paraclimbing to be recognised to become part of the Paralympics.

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So, Abbie, we’ll come on to the issue of the Paralympics a bit later but first, how did you get involved with climbing in the first place?

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Robinson

I first got into climbing around when I was about 12 or 13.Ìý I’ve grown up in Scouts so, I’ve kind of always been a really outdoorsy person.Ìý I first tried it when I was away at a Scout camp and just kind of got obsessed with it straightaway.

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White

But you were, then, about four years later, I think, diagnosed with a visual impairment.Ìý Just explain about that and how you had to adapt your climbing.

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Robinson

Yeah, so, I’d kind of always had issues with reading and seeing the board in school and we weren’t entirely sure what that was.Ìý It wasn’t until I was about 17 that I got diagnosed with Stargardt’s macular dystrophy.Ìý So, basically, that just means that I have a condition that means that my central vision’s deteriorating, so, reading’s really difficult and I can’t really differentiate colours but my peripheral vision’s fine, so, I can walk around and look like a completely sighted person but when I look at a climbing wall, for example, all of the holds disappear.

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White

I mean, did you not think – oh god, I may have to give this up?

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Robinson

It did kind of cross my mind briefly but it was never really something that I ever saw as a barrier because we’d gone through about an eight year process of wondering what was wrong with my eyes and I kind of always knew it was an issue but I just didn’t have a name for it.Ìý So, actually, when I got a diagnosis, I was just really relieved that I had – I finally had a name for it, I finally had a reason and I could get the support that I needed and I just kind of carried on with everything as normal.Ìý I rely a lot on my memory and familiarity of being in spaces that I’ve been in before and I kind of, half the time, don’t really need to use my central vision at all, I just kind of go off memory a lot of the time. ÌýSo, that’s kind of worked with climbing, I was very lucky that when I started I had more vision, so, actually when I was learning all of the techniques and the types of holds I had a much better level of vision and now I can just – it just kind of comes really naturally.

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White

But we heard your sighted guide there, so what does a sighted guide do, how does that work and would you be using that in competition?

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Robinson

Different people will use sight guides for different things, depending on their level of vision really.Ìý Like if you’ve got somebody who’s fully blind, they might have a really detailed sight guide who will have to tell them, you know, precisely where a hold is.Ìý For me, if you tell me the general direction of a hold, like, say, an upright, I’m probably going to see a coloured blob but I can’t really work out what that is because it’s my central vision that I’m lacking so, I can’t really see that detail and I can’t necessarily see the colours.Ìý So, my sight guide generally just points out the general direction of a hold but then they will describe the type of hold, the size of it, how far away it is and basically how I should approach it.Ìý And in competition that’s when I use a sight guide usually because we’ll get a limited time to view the route beforehand – we get about six minutes – so, my sight guide will come with me and I’ll use some binoculars and we’ll talk through the whole route.

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White

Just explain how, though, you can turn climbing into a competitive sport?Ìý How is success measured in climbing?

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Robinson

In climbing there’s three main disciplines.Ìý These are the three disciplines that are going to the Olympics next year.Ìý And that’s speed, boulder and lead.Ìý So, with speed, it’s obviously – it’s one set route, it never changes and it’s basically like sprinting, everyone climbs the same route and it’s obviously fastest to the top.Ìý And the record for that’s about five, six seconds – it’s incredible.Ìý Bouldering, you have a series of boulders that are about four metres high, you don’t climb with a rope, you just land on a crash pad and that’s about completing the most boulders in the fewest attempts.Ìý And with lead climbing or sport climbing, that’s about a 20 – 15, 20 – metre wall and the further you get to the top, the better your place.Ìý For us, in Paraclimbing, that’s what we compete in but we have a rope anchored to the top of the wall, just for fairness and inclusivity.Ìý So, for us we get one attempt on a 15-20 metre wall and furthest to the top is the winner.

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White

So, it’s very similar to climbing generally but there is this attachment to a rope for safety reasons?

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Robinson

Yeah, so, in lead climbing you would take the rope up with you and you would clip it all the way up.Ìý For us, we have the rope already anchored at the top, which anyone who’s been climbing on a rope when they were a kid or something, they will have done top rope climbing, which is what we do.Ìý So, we don’t have to worry about clipping the rope in and that just makes it much fairer and more inclusive for people with – for amputees, people who are completely blind – and it just makes the whole thing more inclusive and fair for everyone.

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White

Now just explain a bit more about climbing walls because they’re quite widespread now, they’ve reopened.Ìý How welcoming do you think they would be for visually impaired people, who just turn up?

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Robinson

Yeah, I mean climbing is a really inclusive sport.Ìý I think, for me, I wasn’t the most sporty of children growing up and people are generally a bit surprised by that but I mean team sports and ball sports were – playing that with people who were fully sighted was really difficult for me and I think in climbing, obviously, I found a sport where I’m the only person that moves, the wall doesn’t move, so it’s a little bit easier to kind of – you can kind of feel your way up as a person with sight issues.Ìý But also, regardless of having a disability or anything, I found the climbing community was just really, really supportive in general and really inclusive.

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White

And you’re really keen for more people to do it, partly because of what you’ve just said but also because it’s really necessary for more visually impaired people to do it to be included as a Paralympic sport?

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Robinson

Yeah, I mean, obviously, next year is the first year that climbing will be in the Olympics – they’re combining all three disciplines.Ìý But at the minute, we’re not in the Paralympics and there’s a lot of reasons for that but one of the big reasons is just that we haven’t got enough participants really.Ìý So, getting more people involved in climbing and Paraclimbing is really important in general for me, because I think it’s an amazing sport but then also to be able to get it into the Paralympics would also be pretty incredible.

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White

So, let’s turn to Craig Spence on this, he’s Chief Brand and Communications Officer with the International Paralympic Committee.Ìý So, Craig, what would have to happen now for Paraclimbing to be included in the Paralympics?

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Spence

Well, for Paraclimbing to get into the Paralympics it’s effectively a two-step process.Ìý The first step is that the sport needs to be recognised by the IPC and the governing body for climbing has been recognised by the IPC since 2017.Ìý The sport must also be on the Olympic programme as well, unless it is a specific sport, such as boccia or goal ball.Ìý And as Abbie mentioned climbing will make its Paralympic debut next year in Tokyo.Ìý Once it ticks those two boxes, we then go into an assessment process, the sport must be compliant and implementing both the World Anti-doping Code and the IPC Athlete Classification Code.Ìý We assess a sport’s quadrennial calendar from the grass roots right through to the world championship level, to see that there’s a regular number of events.Ìý And as Abbie mentioned there, the key thing is about sport’s participation around the world.Ìý So, what we want for a sport, such as climbing, is it must be widely and regularly practised in 32 countries covering three continents.Ìý And if all those boxes are ticked then it goes through to the next stage of assessment and then it’s up to the IPC governing board to determine which sports make up the Paralympic programme.

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White

So, it’s got to be a serious sport taken part by enough people, because that shows there’s real competition and does that have to apply in every disability?Ìý So, in other words, would – it wouldn’t count if there were lots of people but not many of them were visually impaired.

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Spence

Yeah, I mean, each sport in the Paralympics has a classification system, we’re looking for strength across a number of classification disciplines.Ìý Now, in all Paralympic sports not every classification is included in the game.Ìý I mean if you take athletics, there’s something like 32 different classification types.Ìý I know if you take triathlon, as a sport that made its Paralympic debut in Rio a few years ago, they have nine different classifications but only three actually made it through to the medal event programme.Ìý So – and the reason for that is we felt there wasn’t enough strength and depth across the whole classification group.

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White

And just to make it clear, in visual impairment there are three classifications, which represent different degrees of sight.

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Spence

Absolutely.Ìý And when we look at that, if we find that in vision impaired climbing that there’s only a small number of either athletes or countries participating then that’s not going to do the sport any favours.Ìý So, I mean, I agree with Abbie, we need more global participation in vision impaired climbing, so that it’s a stronger proposition for Paralympic inclusion.

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White

Let me go back to Abbie.Ìý Abbie, can I just ask you about safety because for someone, like me, who gets vertigo leaning out of the bedroom window, it sounds a bit scary – is it dangerous?

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Robinson

I guess it depends what kind of climbing you’re doing.Ìý If you’re indoor climbing it’s very safe, I mean if you’re bouldering then you’ve got a bit thick crash mat underneath you and if you’re lead climbing or top roping you’re attached to a rope.Ìý So, obviously, you can have awkward falls but it’s really safe.

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White

Have you had any bad falls?

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Robinson

Well, I’ve just been outdoor climbing yesterday and I’m covered in cuts and scraps but that’s about the worst of it.

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White

Abbie Robinson, thanks very much for sharing your enthusiasm and also our thanks to Craig Spence.

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Well, this programme is all about sharing skills.Ìý Simon Mahoney, who began to lose his sight seven years ago, and is now 73, suddenly found himself in a situation where he had to develop his cookery skills.Ìý And he now wants to share what he’s learnt with other visually impaired people.Ìý

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Simon, just explain what happened to make it necessary – to make cooking essential for you.

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Mahoney

Well what happened is that in March my wife suddenly died, so, I had a choice – I either gave up completely or, to use an old fashioned word, that I honoured all the pain and angst we’d gone through together to get me where I was and push through and do that final independent bit of cooking for myself.

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White

Had you done any cooking before yourself?

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Mahoney

Yes, but it was always great cries of – oh look at the mess you’ve made and dah de dah de dah – so, I was sort of put off from doing it really.

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White

There were alternatives for you, I guess – ready made meals, takeaways – you could have got out of doing it.

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Mahoney

Yeah, I could have got out of it but I decided I wasn’t going to.Ìý And then people kept on coming in and saying – how you doing that, it’s amazing.Ìý And I’d say – well, I’m just getting on with it, what’s wrong with that.Ìý And eventually I thought – actually, if it’s that amazing it might be worth sharing.Ìý So, about six weeks ago, I started writing a cookbook and in fact I finished it yesterday.

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White

Of course, plenty of visually impaired people do cook but starting from scratch could be pretty scary.Ìý How much have you covered safety issues in this?

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Mahoney

Quite a lot.Ìý I’ve got an acronym – safety, lazy person principle because as a blind person you don’t want to be moving around at all because that’s asking for an accident.Ìý Organisation, preparation and execution and if you follow that as a sort of drill you can’t go wrong because basically, you’re getting everything where you need it at the time you need it, rather than rushing around in the middle of trying to prepare something.

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White

And I mean organisation is a very big part of your schtick really, for – so, just – I mean give me a couple of examples of what you reckon are really important things to do.

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Mahoney

Well, first thing I do is I work within the confines of a tray because that actually means that your mess isn’t all over the place because when you’re blind your chances of actually finding the mess to clear it up are pretty minimal.Ìý I’ve got all my equipment and ingredients gathered around the tray, so it’s all in one place.Ìý I’ve got my kitchen organised so that I can reach everything from where the tray is and all I’ve got to do is slide along to the main units, like the hob, the oven and the talking microwave.

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White

So, really, in a way, this is designed, for example, not to have to carry stuff across the kitchen that might spill or that you might trip over?

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Mahoney

Absolutely, yeah.Ìý Or even to move at all.Ìý I even have a mixing bowl for tipping excess rubbish into, so, that I don’t have to go backwards and forwards to the waste bin whilst I’m cooking.

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White

So, if you’re preparing a meal, what you would say to people is have absolutely everything there before you start?

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Mahoney

Yeah, basically, what you do is you reverse engineer the meal.Ìý So, you work out what your ingredients are, what you’re going to need to prepare it and then you have it all standing by your tray, so that when you’re cooking or preparing food that is exactly what you’re concentrating on, you’re not having to focus on moving about safely.

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White

And what kind of recipes therefore, have you put into this book because I mean the number of recipes are infinite, what have you concentrated on?

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Mahoney

There’s three pasta meals – there’s a pasta bake, there’s macaronic cheese, there’s a pasta salad.Ìý This is all very basic stuff but what I’m trying to demonstrate to the recipes are the techniques.Ìý There are three mince meals.

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White

What basically are you trying to get across to people in terms – because really this is a survival kit, right, so you’ve picked the things that would enable you to cope with maybe a limited number of recipes and then if people want to expand, of course, they can.

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Mahoney

Exactly, exactly.Ìý Basically, what I’m trying to teach people is how to construct a meal before they put it in the oven.

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White

And what about equipment – what equipment do you regard as safe and what equipment do you not?

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Mahoney

Right, well, I’ve got an electric wok but I actually prefer an ordinary wok and a tip with a wok, if you’re using a wok, is when you’re turning stuff you turn it into the middle because if you turn it towards the outside it’ll slop all over the hob.Ìý I’ve got a slow cooker which you just sling the stuff in and leave it, I mean it doesn’t get much easier than that.Ìý I’ve got, as I said, a talking microwave and that’s the only thing that’s digital.Ìý My fan oven is analogue, in other words it’s got knobs on it and my hob is analogue, that’s got nobs on it as well, because if you can’t see having digital gear, unless it talks to you, is a no no.Ìý The other aspect is that my knives are extremely sharp and when I’m using them, I use my finger as a guide because I then know where the blade is.

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White

Yeah, but you still have to be careful how you search for that blade, of course.

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Mahoney

Well, not if you’ve got it laid out next to your tray with the handle pointing towards you.

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White

How ambitious do you suggest people are?

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Mahoney

Well, I mean, one of my favourites is an apple walnut and cheese savoury pie and that’s the first thing I made.Ìý So, people can be as ambitious as they like.Ìý But basically, I’m starting with a cup of tea, going through to adding to a ready meal, then going through to do simple pasta dishes, simple mince dishes, simple rice dishes.Ìý And in the process, they’ll be learning all the skills they’ll need to be able to do basic survival cooking.

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White

Simon Mahoney, thanks very much indeed.

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Simon’s book is going to be called First Catch Your Rabbit and it will be available in both audio and large print, hopefully, before Christmas.

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And that’s it for today.Ìý As always, you can share your views with us on cooking or climbing or anything else, you can email intouch@bbc.co.uk.Ìý Or go for more information to our website, that’s bbc.co.uk/intouch.Ìý From there you can also download tonight’s and previous editions of the programme.

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That’s it from me, Peter White, producer Louise Clarke-Rowbotham and studio manager Jonathan Esp.Ìý Goodbye.

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